


Blacktail

by tammy_hell



Category: Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six (Video Games)
Genre: Blood, Corruption, F/F, Guns, Major Character Injury, Mating Press, Rough Oral Sex, Rough Sex, Ryona, Trans Female Character, Vomiting, [COGNITOHAZARD REMOVED], implied animal death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-17
Updated: 2018-05-17
Packaged: 2019-05-08 00:59:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14683175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tammy_hell/pseuds/tammy_hell
Summary: Tina's absence sent Rainbow into a frenzy, and it didn't take long for theories on her disappearance to begin to emerge. Grace Nam was sent alone to ascertain her whereabouts and neutralize her, if necessary. With the limited mission info from Six, Grace would come to understand the secrets buried inside twisting, red lines - and inside herself.





	Blacktail

**Author's Note:**

> That this got slightly out of hand would be an understatement, I think. In attempting to create something short and self-indulgent - I am a big fan of corruption, after all - I somehow wound up writing something half-erotica, half-SCP. Enjoy it - it's an odd one.

 

Going alone certainly wasn’t Grace’s favorite option, but Rainbow was not keen on the idea of sending a larger team and potentially losing a valuable operator. Her boots crunched the dense snow beneath them as the helicopter flew off behind her, Marius speaking to her over her staticky earpiece one last time.

“Heading back to Vancouver now - you’re on your own for 48 hours. Confirm Frost’s status and head back here. Good luck, Dokkaebi!”

And with that, the last of the rotors faded out beyond the hills of Vancouver Island. Aside from her target, she easily could’ve been the only person for miles, surrounded by snow, pines, and mountains. With her, she had her tablet, a BOSG over-under shotgun, a C75 machine pistol, and warm clothes. Enough for 48 hours - nothing more, nothing less. After all, Rainbow’s legal jurisprudence to hunt down potential international fugitives was… shaky, at best, to say the least.

Tina Lin Tsang - Frost, as she was called by fellow operators - had been missing an approximate 8 days before Rainbow stepped in and decided to act on the potentiality of her going AWOL or defecting. She had been described as “agitated”, “easily excited”, and “distant - more so than usual” by other members of JTF2 prior to her disappearance. When she finally deserted, it seemed she had retreated to her reclusive home on Vancouver Island, in the wilderness of Vancouver’s far northern point.

Grace had known Frost for some time. They weren’t friends, exactly, but their mutual interests in engineering kept them together as coworkers, and the two were on amicable terms until just before her desertion. Under the false veneer of cynicism and geekiness, Grace really was worried. Wind rustled the pine trees and disturbed the snow as clouds settled themselves above her. Marius had mentioned something about poor weather while they departed from Vancouver.

Tina’s home was only 15 minutes away by foot, something she confirmed on her tablet’s GPS. She slid it back across her chest and loaded two slugs into the shotgun, pausing to pull her coat up further around her body. Beside her, paying it little mind, a bushel of tall grass bent backwards, moving against the wind.

By the time she sighted the cabin, the winter sun was already threatening to slink down below the horizon. A dirty bomb, maybe, smuggled off the black market. Maybe she’d made off with one of Rainbow’s samples of anthrax, intent on holding some nearby city hostage with it. Or, perhaps, though Grace dreaded it, she had suffered some accident in the wilderness and perished, unbeknownst to the rest of the world.

Approaching, however, it clearly seemed as if there was a fourth option - though Grace knew not what it was. Snow was piled up around the doors, the cabin in a state of slight disrepair. The windows were covered up with a hasty coating of black and red paint, which had dried poorly to allow tiny bits of light to filter inside. Outside, parked in the driveway outside the door, was Tina’s truck, covered in snow and fallen tree branches, the windshield smashed in and the passenger’s side door flung wide open. 

Kicking down the door and going guns-blazing seemed like a somewhat poor idea for a variety of reasons. Grace slid her tablet off her chest and knelt down in the snow. There it was - Tina’s laptop lit up on the tablet’s interface.

“There you are.”

Grace uploaded the code remotely, forcing her way into the laptop’s webcam built into the top of the screen. The trees danced in the wind, their movements defying weather, bending into the breeze. Just like the grass.

The low visibility made it nearly impossible to see anything inside from the laptop’s view, but, thank God, at least it was working. It was sitting on Tina’s bedside table, facing about a ¾ angle into her bedroom, giving a dark, but useful, overview of what was inside. On the bed was Tina herself, writhing around and sputtering quietly, speaking some language Grace couldn’t understand. Other than the bed, the room was a mess; furniture was flung around with wild abandon, winter clothing piled on the floor and the walls covered in something moist-looking. In the corner, Tina’s Super 90 shotgun was leaned up against the wall.

Grace minimized the camera feed and put it in the corner of her screen as she accessed the laptop’s files. Aside from the usual photos, technical files, and applications - she chuckled lightly as she scrolled past a folder hidden in some subdirectories labeled “super serious work stuff DONT OPEN” - there was very little of note, aside from a folder that sat on Tina’s desktop, labeled with a string of characters unreadable to her tablet’s OS. Inside were hundreds, if not several thousand, images, PDF’s, and strange, miniscule files with an extension she’d never seen before.

Curious, Grace opened one of the image files inside, bringing it up on her tablet. Instantly, she was nearly blinded by whatever it was, covering her eyes with her elbow to avoid looking at it. She shot a glance at it out of curiosity; it was some kind of red, geometric pattern against a field of pure black. Spirals spun into cuboid shapes, seeming to go on forever, deep into Grace’s screen - and her mind.

She immediately closed it, reopening the wide screen of Tina’s laptop camera. Now, she sat up, rocking back and forth on the corner of the bed, her hands tightly crossed over her abdomen. Was she sick? Her eyes were reflective like an animal’s, her mouth covered by her black bandana; slowly, they turned to meet the camera. Somehow, through some ancient, primal instinct, Grace felt - no,  _ knew _ \- Tina wasn’t staring at the laptop. She was staring at Grace. With one fluid movement, Tina shut the laptop screen, closing off Grace’s only source of info on the entire mission.

48 hours; no more, no less. Grace didn’t have the time to wait around - it was now or never. Her pistol on her holster, she readied her shotgun and tossed her jacket aside for ease of movement, standing before the snow-covered door. Locked, but not a problem. She pressed the barrel of the gun against the lock and tilted it upwards, facing the inside ceiling, and fired a slug. The noise echoed loudly through the windswept trees of Vancouver Island, the birds fleeing from the sound of danger. It was quiet, for a moment - punctuated by the sound of Grace’s hand pulling the deadbolt through the now-widened hole, kicking aside the snow and yanking it open.

The sun couldn’t have picked a more inopportune time to set, it seemed, as the light gradually faded into nothing in the small, rural cabin. Beyond the door, the entire floor was littered with papers, scraps of cardboard, deerskin, anything that could be written on, all of them covered in red, scrawled writing. Every wall was written upon in red and black paint, carrying over onto the floor when Tina had run out of space. Like the bedroom, the furniture was thrown about and disorganized, the cabin looking like it’d been ransacked. 

Shotgun readied, Grace took a step inside - a mistake she had very little time to think about. Too optimistic, she had neglected to notice a slight disturbance in the papers and leather mats on the floor, sticking up just an inch or so, covering something. As soon as Grace’s foot hit the ground inside, the steel jaws of a Sterling Mk2 snapped around her leg, crushing it against the papers and refuse. Screaming, mind throbbing, Grace buckled over, the pain indicating her leg had been broken instantly. Her body slammed against the wooden floor, knocking off her 707 beanie and tossing it across the ground. The shotgun clattered beside her and misfired, shrieking as it launched another slug into the bedroom wall.

She hadn’t had a moment to think what was going on under the immeasurable pain and noise, her ears ringing and body trembling. The front door slammed shut behind Grace, the adrenaline forcing her onto her stomach, desperately trying to crawl forward, the Sterling trap’s steel jaws still wrapped around her crushed, bleeding leg. Barely a second had passed before she felt Tina’s body sitting down on her back, straddling her, before smashing her face against the hardwood floor with the butt of the Super 90. Grace lost consciousness almost immediately, her brain overloaded with pain and fear.

 

...vision blurry…

 

...ears ringing…

 

...body aching…

 

Grace’s eyes fluttered open slowly. She was in Tina’s bedroom, sitting upright, her head rolled backwards and forced her to stare upwards into the ceiling. Her face felt warm, wet with something; as her senses returned, she could feel the thin, metal frame of her glasses pushed into her face, broken and bent apart. Blood dripped down from tiny cuts on her forehead and her cheeks, every inch of her body engulfed in violent, aching pain. Her hands wiggled around, only to find themselves tied to the chair against each other with zip ties.

Slowly, she regained control of her body and dropped her head down to look around - only for her eyes to meet Frost’s. She was sitting on her bed, just across from Grace, the semi-automatic shotgun pointed directly at her. Her breathing was frantic, aggressive, agitated, her eyes piercing Grace deeper than the strange image before. Oh, God, her eyes!

In the low candlelight it would’ve been easy to miss, but something about them was… otherworldly, disturbing on a visceral level. No longer did she have her pretty, brown eyes, clear and youthful. The things taking their place were black, pure black, with only a thin ring of white to break it up. They reflected the smallest light vibrantly, like a cat’s, shining directly at her.

“Did Six send you? I bet they did, didn’t they.” Tina spouted, moving forward on the bed a slight bit. Her voice was… sickening. There was something inhuman about it; the metallic twinge that hadn’t been there before, the shakiness of her voice, the cadence of it like someone who’d just learned to speak. She adjusted her grip on the shotgun, her reflective eyes beaming.

“I bet you thought I’d give up so easy, right? Right? Thought I’d be in here with a hostage and a white mask on, huh? Fuck, you’re such an idiot!”

Tina sprung to her feet and smashed Grace’s face with the flat side of the shotgun, her broken glasses flying off and clattering on the floor. Grace coughed, spitting up blood, mixing with the stuff still covering her face as it dripped onto the bulletproof cover of her tablet. The shotgun once again smashed into Grace’s battered, ruined face.

“You have  _ no _ idea what I’ve been up to, do you?  _ Do you? _ ” she pleaded, her tone suddenly changing from accusatory to pensive. “ _ None _ of you get it!”

Grace had to speak, had to say something to make her stop. Her throat ached in pain, even the tiniest movement igniting the inferno of pain in her broken, useless leg. Pain, however, was preferable to death - an outcome that seemed increasingly likely as Frost became more agitated. Slowly, agonizingly slowly, Grace forced out words.

“W-... Wh-what’s… h-happen...n-ning…”

Grace’s answer was another beating. This time, the butt of the shotgun slammed into her stomach, below her kevlar armor. Her body couldn’t take more of this; without any other recourse for the unending abuse, her stomach gave out and forced her to vomit. It was painful, mixed in with blood, forcing her to lean to the side and let it out, covering the floor around her. If nothing else, it sobered her up, allowing her to think more clearly.

Something was very, very wrong with Tina. Clearly, she was sick, and whatever she had was affecting her ability to think. Thinking back, she knew Tina spent the winters alone, hunting for food - perhaps it was something she’d gotten from a sick animal? Grace sputtered, coughing as the last of the vomit left her mouth.

“T-Tina, please,” she began, keeping her voice calm. It wasn’t the first beating she’d taken - she’d live, at least. “T-Tell me what’s g-going on, I… I was j-just sent to find y-you, n-nobody’s seen you since you g-got up and left at Heref-ford.”

Frost raised the butt of the shotgun again, but paused. Deep inside, beneath the sickness, Tina Lin Tsang was still there. For a brief moment, elation replaced the pain and torment inside Grace’s mind. A crackled buzz came from her earpiece, Tina’s eyes going wide as Marius’s garbled voice came from the other end.

“Dokkaebi, --- copy? It’s --- hours since --- contact, and the --- is getting worse. Shaping up --- full-on --- blizzard. --- repeat, do --- copy? Ov---.”

Exasperated, Grace struggled, trying to grab the small microphone, forgetting her bondage - but Tina push her forward, shoving the barrel of the shotgun into her forehead. Her eyes pierced into Grace’s mind, burning into her like the image she’d seen before; bitter, angry, violent-looking.

“Tell him you’re still looking for me, Grace. He can’t know. He can’t know. He can’t. Don’t let him.”

Grace’s words were coaxed out of her mouth by Tina slowly, wordlessly wrapping a finger around the trigger. All the while, Frost kept staring, panting heavily.

“W-… I-I’m fine, J-Jӓger. H-Hard to… t-travel in the s-snow, hah. I’ll… I’ll talk to you later. Over.”

Tina relaxed her finger and placed it back on the side of the trigger guard, pulling back the barrel of the gun and sitting back down on the bed. A gloved hand ripped Grace’s earpiece from her head, throwing it off into the corner, far out of the reach of her broken leg. Without hesitation, Tina broke down, tossing herself onto the bed face-down and sobbing profusely, her body occasionally thrashing around, kicking the heavy knit quilt off the bed. Grace bowed her head, quietly crying to herself, fallen tears mixing with the vomit and blood covering her legs. She could survive this - she  _ had _ to survive this. All she needed to do was get back in control of the situation. With a sigh, she perked her head up once again.

“T-Tina,” she began, her voice quiet and shaky, her body slowly fading from blood loss and exhaustion. “I… Y-You know me, I… L-Look, we can p-probably figure out a way to… I-I don’t know… f-fix you. G-Gustave could fly out and take a look at y-you--”

It was clear Frost wasn’t listening. Suddenly, her sobbing and thrashing stopped, Grace bracing herself for another mood swing; the wounds would heal and her leg could be fixed, but seeing a colleague, someone she cared about, like this? The bed groaned as Tina sat up, facing away from Grace and shaking her head. She sighed, her voice trembling.

“You… you don’t get it. You just… you don’t get it, Grace, you don’t! I… I tried to show Monika, but… s-she couldn’t  _ get _ it, Grace..!”

Tina trailed off, turning around to face her captive. Her black, inky eyes stared right into her.

“But you’re… you’re smart! You got into Rainbow on your own, you… you can understand. I can show you! I’ll show you!” Tina’s voice trembled as she flung herself onto her feet, tossing the loaded shotgun haphazardly onto the bed as she rushed over, pulling her combat knife out of its sheath. Grace went wide-eyed and pale, panting as Tina approached, the chair she was tied to rocking on the hardwood floor. A black gloved finger pressed itself against Grace’s mouth.

“No, no, please,  _ please _ don’t struggle! I… Y-You’re the only one who can understand this, Grace! Not Monika, not Emmanuelle, not anyone else! Only you! L...L-Look!” she begged, pulling down one of her sleeves and tossing her black glove aside.

Her skin was… anemic-looking, to say the least. She had always been somewhat pale on her arms, Grace had noticed, but not like this. Now, almost milky-white skin mixed with black and red scars of intricate, geometric patterns covered much of her arms, with reddish blemishes where they had begun to come in. This was why she’d dressed so heavily, even inside, Grace thought - but that thought, among all others, was banished the second Tina dug the knife into her own arm, just below her wrist.

Whatever came out resembled blood only in consistency. It was a viscous, black liquid, gushing out of the wound profusely, much more so than a normal wound would bleed. The stuff seeped out and dripped onto Grace’s legs, forcing her to recoil, desperate as to not catch whatever it was Tina was sick with. Tina slid the knife back into the sheath; just as Grace opened her mouth to say something, gazing into her captor’s inhuman eyes, Tina shoved her wrist against Grace’s lips, panting profusely.

“You see!? You… You have to let it in, Grace, or they won’t be happy! They… They’ll show you,  _ I’ll _ show you! They just want to come in, you- you just need to let them!”

It was sickening, like pungent, rusted metal, leaching into Grace’s mouth and down her throat, seemingly acting on its own accord. Something happened as it wormed its way inside; her mind buckled, a painful twinge of heat drilling its way inside. Her head throbbed, pulsated, Tina ensuring she was unable to close her mouth without coaxing out more of the stuff. Something crept into the back of her mind, telling her to relax, to let them inside. Let them inside, Grace, let them --

Tina suddenly jerked her head to the side, staring at one of the painted windows. In the distance, far beyond what Grace could hear, something had drawn her attention. She leapt away from Grace, swiping her phone off the bed and turning it on, glaring at the screen with those ethereal eyes. As quickly as she had picked it up, she tossed the phone aside and grabbed the Super 90, blowing out the sparse candles that lit the room and running out the door, slamming it on the way out.

After the sounds of Tina’s boots crunching in the snow faded, Grace was alone in the pitch darkness. The snow muffled the sounds of Vancouver Island, her ears ringing as the sound faded into nothing, desperate for some kind of stimulus. The only light came in the form of faint, bluish moonlight, bouncing off the white powder and through the tiny cracks in the painted-over windows.

She couldn’t do anything with her leg so thoroughly broken - and would it be wise to risk it, even if she could walk? There could be dozens of other traps, hidden in the darkness, eager to clamp onto her other leg, her arm, her neck, as she pathetically tried to crawl away. Then what, Grace? Crawl back to Victoria? Die in the snow? Stay here with us, she told herself.

...What?

Grace shook her head, breathing deep like she’d learned in the 707th. This wasn’t happening. None of it was. The throbbing in her head told her she’d wake up, soon; she overslept on the flight to Vancouver, resting her head in some uncomfortable position. Breathe deep, Grace. It would all be over soon.

Not even 30 seconds passed before she broke down again, sobbing and kicking her legs as little as they would move without igniting the furious pain. Focus. You need a plan, Grace; you can’t fix this by thrashing around in the dark. Grace calmed down, shaking her head again, the fuzziness inside temporarily abating. 

The chair she was tied to was somewhat old, the varnish rubbed off in some places. Grace moved forward a bit, managing to slink the ties around one of the poles of the wooden backrest, catching the plastic on a patch of rough wood. Careful not to move her leg, she began to saw back and forth, back and forth. Frost could be back any moment, now, and she wasn’t keen on letting her find her like this.

Finally, with a snap, the zipties came undone, Grace’s fingertips tingling as the blood flowed back into her hands. The wind outside picked up once again, this time blowing heavy gusts into the cabin walls, the noise gradually replacing the intolerable silence.

The first order of business for the now-freed Grace was information. Frost was sick,  _ very _ sick, and if it was contagious, there was no way she could let herself back into Rainbow’s care, especially after having swallowed her blood. The files on her laptop, though… Anything was better than being caught in the dark, literally and metaphorically, and Grace slide the tablet out of its anchorage on her chest, turning it on and reconnecting herself to Frost’s hard drive.

She was careful to avoid the files with the more suspicious-sounding names, especially after the bizarre, painful pattern had given her a headache earlier in the day. She sorted them by date, opening the first file in the folder - a video, taken by Tina about a month before her strange behaviors started to show.

It was shot on a cell phone camera, from the vertical position. In the center of the frame was some kind of earthen mound, red and black paint dumped on top of it in some kind of vague geometric pattern. Tina’s voice - the real thing - spoke quietly, occasionally sniffling in the October cold.

“Found this while I was out hiking. Just, uh, just taking a video for future reference. Gonna go get my shovel, but just in case it’s a body or something, here’s what it looks like.”

The video ends after a loud sound of fabric rustling as Tina shut the recording off. Grace recalled her saying something about something odd in the woods during one of their video calls; she also recalled many collective hours she’d spent by Tina’s side in the showers at Hereford, her eyes occasionally glancing over at her.

Grace shook her head again and went on to the next few files; these were images, only a few megabytes large, also taken by Tina’s cell phone camera in vertical. One was an image of her hand, holding some kind of crude, stone talisman or figurine, carved out of soapstone or granite and hastily painted with blots of red. The next was a stone tablet with an elaborate engraving on the front of it, the lines painted deep in red. Even in the low-quality picture, something about it… burned, like the one Grace had seen earlier. It made her want to keep staring, stirring something from inside of her. 

Grace’s heart beat faster as she opened the next video file, looking for information. This one was over 6 gigabytes and 5 hours long on its own, recorded from Tina’s laptop camera, dated around 3 days before Rainbow dispatched Grace to find her. It was of her living room as she paced around randomly, speaking nonsense as she attempted to show the camera vague, incomprehensible concepts by using her hands. Grace slid her finger over the tracking bar, skipping around to each hour. On the first, Tina paced around, shouting to herself and using a piece of paper to show a geometric pattern, like the one on the tablet.

With some difficulty, as something compelled her to stare at the pattern more, Grace skipped to hour two. Now, Tina removed her large coat, becoming visibly more agitated and waving around her combat knife. The floor had become covered in scattered papers, and after a few seconds, Tina turned to write on the wall with her hand, dipped in paint. By hour three, the floor was completely covered in paper and other materials, all used to write as Tina became increasingly aggressive, the chairs in her living room now overturned and a lampshade thrown onto the floor, the bulb broken.

In the distance, through the snow, the distinctive blast of the Super 90 shook the trees. Grace looked away, turning over her shoulder to face it; Frost had evidently caught something in one of her traps - she’d mentioned to Grace a few months ago that she had lots of trail cameras - and had finished it off, only minutes away from returning. Look at the tablet, Grace.

She complied, looking down at it only to be greeted with a fullscreen display of the strange, alluring pattern that drilled itself into her mind. It hurt, it burned her eyes, the red spiraling on into infinity, but she dared not look away. The image compounded on itself, unfolding like the self-erasing code of her logic bomb, burrowing in and nestling itself.

It got to work almost immediately, Grace unable to break her stare. Memories, thoughts, feelings, all floated to the top, coaxed out of their tucked-away recesses by Grace’s training and her work. Unclean thoughts about Tina, about Monika, about Taina, all unearthed and forced into the forefront of her mind, dancing in the red and black contours of that beautiful pattern. Her time under Major General Kuh and the possibility of Kyung Hwa spying on her had forced her to repress her true feelings, become something she wasn’t. Suddenly, the pain of the day - her leg, the beatings, the fear and the crying - seemed to fade out, if only for a moment.

The patterns mesmerized her, comforted her, dug deeper into her mind as she felt the presence of another - herself. Time seemed compressed, the patterns on her tablet beginning to move, change, pulsate like a living thing. Grace opened her mouth, letting the new, beautiful, vibrant presence within speak for her in hushed, thoughtful tones.

“Oh, fuck. I’m gay.”

It was all-consuming, now, the brilliant lines of crimson weaving themselves into every fiber of Grace’s existence. Soon, it was all she could see, consuming every inch of her vision with pulsating, alluring red, pulling her deeper and deeper into its spell. Frost’s blood had changed something inside her body, morphing it in subtle ways to suit her new purpose, her new divine instruction. Without thinking, she wiped a hand over the blood running down her face, licking it off, savoring every drop of it. Grace needed more, needed to feel it run deeper and deeper until she was like Tina, someone deserving of understanding, of knowledge.

Without thinking, Grace slammed the tablet into her face with enough force to shatter the screen. The beautiful pattern twisted painfully in her mind, eclipsing the pain and the blood now running freely from her nose. It punished her for it, for looking away even as shards of the screen fell from her face and onto the floor, covered in blood. The old Grace returned, gasping deeply, the spell broken. She would’ve stared at those beautiful, enchanting lines forever, if she could.

Scarcely a second passed before Tina slammed the front door open. Grace froze, wrapping her hands back around the chair and dropping her tablet to the ground, the small dokkaebi sticker on the back soaked in blood, threatening to fall off. In the low light, Grace could only see Tina’s haunting, reflective eyes, glaring at her from the darkness outside the bedroom. Slowly, she approached, tossing the shotgun back onto the bed, something dripping from it in the faint, invisible moonlight.

Tina moved around Grace in a circle, disappearing into the darkness with every step as Grace lost sight of her eyes. She paused, off to her side and out of view, speaking in a low, passionate tone. Every word sent shivers down Grace’s back, each syllable making her head pound.

“I can show you, Grace. You have to let it in, you can’t keep fighting it or it’ll get angry and we don’t want it to be angry. I taste it on you, you know; I think you made it angry. But we can fix it! We can fix it together. I promise. I promise. Look!”

Something warm and wet touched Grace’s face, making her recoil. Tina seemed almost enraged by her movement, grabbing her by the hair and holding her head still, ignoring her quiet whimpers and shivering. Once again, the flesh rubbed against her, warming her cold, terrified skin. It reeked of blood, covering her cheek its hot, wet surface. Tina’s breathing grew heavier as she tried to force it into Grace’s mouth.

“You… y-you have to eat it, Grace. They can’t help you understand unless you give them what they want! It’s fresh, for you. For both of us. You have to, Grace. You have to.”

Still she resisted, turning her head away as much as she could despite Tina’s grip on her hair, doing anything to keep the slimy thing out of her mouth. Tina slipped her hand into Grace’s holster, pulling out the C75 and holding against Grace’s head. Without further movement, she opened her mouth and allowed Tina to shove the meat inside.

As soon as the blood touched her tongue, Grace’s resistance and struggling ceased. Something deeper than herself, lost in the twisting webs of burning crimson, was satisfied, her body flooded with ecstasy, weightlessness, and desire for  _ more _ . She greedily closed her teeth around it, feeling them sink into the sinewy, bloody lump of meat, ripping off chunks of it and swallowing them whole.

Tina’s breathing became hysteric, barely managing to stifle her giddy laughter. She knelt down and nuzzled her face against Grace’s, her bandana already removed, her soft lips pressing into Grace’s cheeks. She opened her mouth slowly and rolled her tongue out, licking Grace’s face as she ripped the meat with her teeth in an almost animalistic frenzy. Her tongue was long, much longer than Grace’s, much longer than any human’s; she could feel it reach from Tina’s mouth all the way down her neck, easily 7 inches long or more. It was wet, hot, delicious against her skin, eagerly lapping up the blood from the meat - and from Grace’s wounds.

Soon, the warm, bleeding strip of meat was at its end, only a few scraps left in Tina’s hands. She laughed, her excitement palpable, frenzied.

“You… Y-You’re… you’re ready to understand them, Grace. We gave them what they needed to make you better. To fix you..! We… I…”

Without another sound, Tina moved away and struck a match, lighting the candles once again. The room filled with light, Grace’s eyes adjusting to it - and to Tina.

She stood in front of her, her heavy jacket discarded. Now, she wore only a tank top, drenched in sweat and blood and caked in dirt, clinging tightly to her… skin. Tina’s arms were covered in the same discolorations as her wrist, moving all the way down her body and looking as if she’d begun to turn almost reddish. Her real skin was pale and anemic-looking, covered with the twisting, red-and-black patterns. The movements of Tina’s hips, the swaying of her body were enticing, hypnotic; a beautiful, twisting pattern in and of themselves.

Tina grabbed the chair, leaning over Grace as she slowly, meticulously turned it around. On the opposite side of the room, painted in red and black on the wall hidden from Grace this whole time was an enormous, meticulously scrawled pattern, even more beautiful than the one she’d seen on the tablet before smashing it. The contours of it were unreal, inhuman, unearthly; beautiful could not begin to describe the intense, almost godlike allure of them. They burned like white-hot fire, every fiber of Grace’s being threaded between those red, powerful lines like a patchwork quilt.

The experience was overwhelming, moving Grace to tears as she stared wide-eyed at it, never once thinking to blink. She didn’t have to, it seemed; something had changed, imperceptibly, in her eyes. They felt… sharper, clearer, more in tune with the rest of her body; the darkness faded and the light became purer, every inch of the pattern before her represented in unreal, alien clarity. Her head throbbed, her eyes twitching and fluttering as the shape twisted into her body like a snake; Grace’s mind, her unenlightened human mind, put up the last legs of its pathetic resistance and shattered like an eggshell.

Grace could practically feel her blood changing color, changing shape, changing meaning inside every inch of her veins. The pain in her leg was deafened, covered up by twisting lines of red and black, red and black, red and black, worming their way into her bones, healing them, mending them, showing them strength again. Moments passed, perhaps hours - it didn’t matter to Grace - as she continued staring, eyes fluttering and spasming, body growing weak under the demanding energy of such a beautiful creation. Invisible blades of fire dug themselves into her skin, preparing to leave their beautiful, twisting signature upon the canvas of her body.

Tina’s voice was soft, muted by the gravity of her creation, but she could still be heard. She began running her fingers through Grace’s hair, sobbing quietly and shivering, her attention focused on it just like Grace’s.

“It… Isn’t it beautiful? Y-You gave them what they wanted, Grace… I-I told you, I told you, I told you!”

Something new welled up inside Grace; an alien warmth, all too familiar. She’d felt the slightest pangs of it when she had spent those showers alone with Tina and Monika, scrolled too far into Taina’s personal files on a bored Sunday, all beaten down by her colleagues. It was a warm, burning heat inside, concentrated on her loins and her chest, running electrically down her body and now carried on strong, red wires. The tears came harder, the voices inside speaking to her in her own voice, assuring her, consoling her; all was well, Grace. You know what you need to do.

With a gasp, Grace broke her concentration on the pattern and the things upon things that lived inside it, inside  _ her _ , panting heavily as she rubbed her face, feeling the blood covering it. Her kevlar armor felt hot, constricting, painful; hastily, she unfastened it and threw it aside, ripping off her shoulder pads and boots as well, piling them on the floor. Her wetsuit was slick with blood, sweat, and tears, though a moisture of another form began to seep into the neoprene. 

Stumbling on her broken leg, Grace stood and turned to Tina, her body now burning hot. The voices didn’t intervene - Grace knew precisely what she wanted. Getting close, she could tell Tina knew, too; that same warmth burned inside her as well, welling up to her skin and practically singing Grace’s hand as she touched her. She trembled, threatening to fall over at any moment, staring deep into Tina’s blackened, knowing eyes.

“T-Tina,” she began, speaking feeling almost like a crude mockery of her true intent. “I need you.”

Without saying another word, Tina locked lips with Grace, her long tongue instantly locking with her partner’s. Their mouths tasted like blood and iron, dripping with domesticated malice and a mind constricted, writhing unjustly in the brilliant crimson binding. The kiss was frenzied and almost feral with its loose, unrestricted energy, both of them stumbling backwards onto the bed. Tina shoved the Super 90 off the side and rolling on top of Grace, locking eyes with her, a hand instinctively sliding behind Grace’s neck and cradling her.

Their shared enlightenment danced in the space between them, connecting their minds with one, red strand. Both wanted the same thing, after all; the neoprene of Grace’s wetsuit clung to her body, moistened with sweat and a sweeter, stickier wetness, as she lifted a hand underneath Tina’s body, feeling the thing she’d secretly always wanted. Another hand, coated in blood, hastily worked to unfasten Tina’s belt, slipping it off and tossing it aside, into the pile with Grace’s body armor. Soon, Tina’s snow pants were around her ankles, making it easy for Grace to clumsily grab them with her legs and toss them aside. 

Now, Tina loomed over Grace in nothing but a thin tank-top and her briefs, a hefty bulge pressed up against the fabric. It stretched them out noticeably, straining under the length of it, the mouthwatering thickness of it; the lust spurred on by those beautiful patterns and her own emotion floating to the top now transformed into a burning, aching  _ need _ , tearing her apart and clouding her mind. She glanced up at Tina, her panicked breathing and sweat-covered face indicating she felt the same way.

Grace wrapped an arm around Tina’s waist, pulling her in closer and allowing her to rub up against her blood-soaked face. Tina’s body was hot, burning hot, infinitely warmer than the frozen wilderness just beyond the painted-over windows; her length rubbed over Grace’s bruised, bloody cheeks with the same comfort as one may expect from a long-estranged lover. Trembling, she gently tugged at the waistband of Tina’s briefs, pulling them down to her thighs.

Clearly, more had changed on Tina’s body than Grace originally anticipated. Tina’s cock was easily 8 inches or more, throbbing to full length just in front of Grace’s face, heat radiating off of it and a bead of precum forming at the tip. Above it, a somewhat unkempt, but still alluring, bush, trimmed only minimally - Tina, of course, was occupied with other things. Grace’s eyes shot over every minute detail of it, taking in the sight all she could before glaring up at Tina for permission. Wordlessly, she nodded, locking eyes with Grace and staring into one another, so much deeper than anyone ever could without enlightenment. Grace leaned forward, sitting up a bit and sliding her soft lips over it. Tina gasped quietly, stabilizing herself with one arm on the wall behind the end of the bed and one on Grace’s hair, brushing her fingers through it gently; she combed out the blood and the tangles she’d gotten earlier, before she understood.

Tina’s member was delicious, intoxicating; Grace had wanted it for so long, a desire long tucked away under more pressing concerns in her day-to-day. Every inch of it forced her mind to writhe happily in its new, red constrictions; the saltiness of it, the scent of it, the feeling of it sliding down her throat deeper with every second, her body no longer burdened, it seemed, with concern for gagging; the pattern took care of that, allowing Tina to press Grace’s face up against her bush, her throat distended under the size of it. Tina groaned loudly, unconcerned with modesty - neither was Grace, after all, as she sucked away at it, drooling all over herself, a hand moving up against Tina’s side to caress her body, to feel the contours of her beautiful hips and every movement she made as she began pushing in and out of Grace’s mouth.

Breathe out of your nose, Grace. She complied, eyes fluttering and rolling back into her head while Tina continued using her throat for herself. A tiny trickle of blood, coaxed out by the movement of Grace’s head, began running down her face from her nostrils, dripping down onto her chest. Slowly, she became aware of the fact that her wetsuit began to feel tighter, somehow, as if it didn’t fit as well as it used to. It could wait - other, more pressing matters took the forefront of Grace’s mind, however restricted and addled by the twisting patterns it may have been.

The red blood flowing from Grace’s nose began to run darker and darker until it ran down her chin as black as the Vancouver Island sky just outside the windows. The contrast was beautiful; the blackness of this new, pure blood against the dried stains of her unenlightened red blood, mixing in with Tina’s pale skin and the saliva dripping down from Grace’s mouth. Some of it seeped into her mouth, contrasting the powerful saltiness of Tina’s cock with metallic sweetness, both burning hot as she ran her tongue over every inch of it, pushing her head forward to allow it to go deeper, deeper, deeper.

Small, measured spurts of pre flowed down her throat, Tina’s beautiful length throbbing a bit. Now, she gripped Grace’s hair, tightly pulling on her already-messy braids, her roughness slowly unwinding them, using them as little more than handles for her own comfort, her own pleasure, uncaring for Grace. It isn’t like she cared much, of course; her own lust and the overruling potency of the red lashes running through her brain overruled her concerns. Relax, Grace, they told her; you’re getting precisely what you’ve been needing after so long.

Deep down, however, a somewhat painful thought emerged, but one that quickly took hold. Her throat was being fucked raw, her sweaty face now drenched in blood and saliva, eyes watering with every uncaring thrust. Despite the frequent spurts of pre down her throat and the unbearably intense sensation of her mouth being violated, something… burned, deep inside of her. It wasn’t enough. Nowhere near enough, Grace noticed; she had to feel Tina deeper inside, closer to her, something to fill the gap opened by those twisting, mesmerizing lines. She moved her hands from Tina’s hips and wrapped her arms around her body, managing to pry Tina’s cock out of her throat.

“G-Grace..?” she sputtered, her hips pausing.

Grace panted heavily, a strand of saliva connecting Tina’s cock to her lips. She sat wide eyed and tired, rubbing the member up against her face, the dried red blood turning muddy brown and swirling into the fresh, black trickles coming down her face. With a tired, almost pained gasp, she spoke, throat rubbed raw and sore.

“I can’t t-take anym-more of this, T-Tina, I…”

She quickly laid down against the bed, sliding under Tina’s legs and sprawling her legs out. Almost on its own, Grace’s hand darted to her crotch, sliding up and down the moist spot on her wetsuit, panting, begging with her eyes. A moan escaped her lips - and then a word.

“Please.”

The miniscule pause between them was electric - and then Tina pulled her shirt off, tossing it aside like the rest of the clothing. Now, her breasts hung bare - Tina had no time for bras, it seemed - in the cool air of the cabin, her nipples perked up, alert. With fumbling hands, she slid her combat knife out of her pocket and carefully stuck it through the neoprene of Grace’s wetsuit, just above her crotch. After it ripped, Tina threw it aside, clattering on the floor as she pried the hole open, uncaring and possessed with an otherworldly desire - almost literally.

Grace mewled, begged, her body writhing and twitching on its own accord, wrapping her arms around Tina as she lifted Grace’s legs upwards, pinning her down and leaning forward before laying on top of Grace’s sweaty, bloodsoaked body. She was hot, unbearably hot; Grace wiggled around before finally being calmed by the softness of Tina’s lips against her own, long, inhuman tongue sliding into her mouth and dancing with hers. They were mere conduits for the long, red lashes now constricting both of their minds; like leylines, they connected, forming an intimacy unfathomable to those without the perfect understanding Grace and Tina now shared.

Grace’s body was slick with sweat as Tina rubbed her cock all over the space just outside her pussy, now gushing its juices unrestricted by the wetsuit. Like Tina, she had also not shaven recently; though this was a preferential choice, more than Tina’s apparent, though justified, lack of care. The saliva coating Tina’s shaft rubbed into her skin, into her bush, mixing with the juices flowing at an almost alarming rate out of Grace’s snatch. Every time those heavenly, delicious eight inches came close to her opening, Grace shivered violently, the red lashes constricting her psyche tugging on her leash, coaxing a reaction out of her. Good girl, Grace. We all want this, after all - don’t we?

Tina shifted her weight onto Grace and locked her in a mating press, their faces mere inches away from one another. Now, the connection they felt was fiery, burning, potent; Tina leaned her head forward and Grace met her in between, locking lips without speaking a word to one another. Saliva dripped down their chins, the mess on Grace’s cheeks now rubbing onto Tina - but neither cared. How could they? After all, the pattern and the things inside the pattern told them, the world ceased to exist at the edges of the bed. Modesty - a meaningless construct. Nothing mattered right now beyond the throbbing of Tina’s cock, the twitching of Grace’s pussy, and the burning, almost painful force of those thin, red lines.

A gust of wind blew out the meager candlelight, and suddenly, the two were wrapped in darkness - but Grace scarcely noticed. Even without the light, the world around her seemed… vibrant, illuminated in strange, alien shades of blue, black, and red. Off to the side, just beyond Tina’s shifting body, the pattern scrawled on the wall seemed to throb with vibrancy, almost ignoring the low light altogether. A quiet moan escaped her lips, muffled by Grace’s mouth - silent, it seemed, in comparison with the loud gasp from Grace as she slid herself inside.

Like the beauty of those twisting patterns, words could not come close to describing the sense of utter elation, fulfillment, and belonging Grace felt in that moment. Nothing could compare; the feeling was not alien to her, as she’d shared it years ago in a brief, unsatisfying fling with Chandar back at Hereford, but now it carried with it so much more than silent, empty passion and carnal pleasure. Something burned inside of Grace, beyond the influence of the twisting red lashes or the immense pleasure and fullness she felt as Tina slid her cock deeper into her waiting, welcoming pussy; it was a visceral, churning feeling inside of her, similar to being told horrible, life-shattering news - but reversed, somehow, twisted into something positive, something that filled a hole Grace never knew was empty - in more ways than one.

Grace’s eyes rolled back as Tina pulled her hips outwards, thrusting into her again. Tina pressed harder on Grace’s legs and pulled her midsection slightly closer, completely restricting Grace’s movement as she ravaged her, burning with passion and love just as much as she overflowed with raw, unbridled lust, twisted by the patterns constricting her mind into a frenzied, almost singular drive to keep Grace pinned there and stuffed with her cock. Tina adjusted her grip, wrapping her hands around Grace’s ankles instead, freeing up some space for herself. Tears rolled out of Grace’s fluttering, barely-conscious eyes, a volatile mixture of lust and missed opportunities. Why, she asked herself, mind bending with every aggressive thrust from Tina, had she lied to herself for so long?

Slowly, however, the feelings of longing and nostalgia faded away, the red pattern and the thing that lived inside it assuring her they would return another time. Tina extended a hand away from Grace’s ankles and wrapped it gently around her chin, her eyes, lost in pleasure, now focusing again. They stared at one another, Tina’s movements slowing down almost instinctively, sweat dripping from her face in the cold air, reflecting unseen rays of light into Grace’s enlightened eyes, bundled up in red and coated with a reflective visage of black and white. You’ve been waiting so, so long for this, Grace, the pattern told her. Enjoy it. We insist.

Without another thought, Grace wrapped her arms around Tina’s body, holding her in place just as Tina had done to her legs. A smirk crossed her soft, plush lips, eyes now focused and clear, the passive emotion now directed on Tina’s face - telling her exactly everything she needed to know. Silently, without even a nod of confirmation, her thrusts sped back up, the bed beneath them now stained with Grace’s juices, with Tina’s sweat, and the blackened, purified blood of both of them. Every microscopic movement electrified them, invigorated them; they shared each others’ energy, shared their passion, shared their unbearable need for more. Words caught in Grace’s throat thawed after such a long, agonizing silence - but something about them felt… incorrect. They flowed in her mind strangely, things like tone and grammar almost alien in Grace’s mind. The red pattern had wormed its way in deep, it seemed, deep like Tina - but even more rapid. Regardless, she spoke, her voice a lewd, erotic purr.

“You’ve… b-been going a-at me for a w-while, now, T-Tin...na…” Grace began, trailing off as the lashes around her mind dug deeper. Suddenly, an overwhelming sense of sentimentality and deep, burning emotion struck her heart, and the words dripped off her tongue with flaming desire. “I… I bet you w-want to t-totally cum in m-me, right..? I-... I’ve b-been on the pill for a wh-while, now, y-you know! H-... Hah…”

Grace, face covered in blood and tears, saliva from herself and her partner, broke out into rapturous laughter. There were too many reasons why, none of them coherent; regardless, her laughter drowned out the fleshy noises of Tina’s body slamming down onto Grace’s and the torrent of the increasingly dangerous winds outside, blowing backwards into the disobeying pine trees. Tina couldn’t hold it much longer, her face already twisted into an almost cruel-looking smile from Grace’s laughter; Tina breathed out of her mouth, growing heavier with every passing second, every thrust into Grace’s pussy, every tiny movement of their bodies. Tina mumbled to herself quietly, words interspersed with moans and panting. “Oh my G-God… oh my God, Grace, oh m-my God I nee-eed to, I... h-have to, want to, I--”

Grace ran a gloved hand through Tina’s hair, grabbing it and toying with it, still staring deep into her black, reflective eyes. Now the silence seemed unbearable any longer; Grace constantly muttered to herself, and slowly, Tina did the same, their gaze influencing the thoughts of each other, locking them in a mental dance far greater than the mating press the two were currently locked in. Under the mumbling, Grace forced out several words of her own, clearly coaxing her partner. “C-Cum, Tina, cum, Tina, c-cum, Tin-nahhhhHHH~!!!!!!!”

Tina slammed her hips down into Grace one last time and held them there, pressing her entire body into Grace’s, her body convulsing in orgasm as she screamed loudly, matching the same sound coming from Grace’s soft lips. The reaction from both was immediate, Grace cumming as well, losing herself the instant she felt the first hot, sticky jets of Tina’s cum fill her pussy, mixing in with her juices already gushing out and onto the bed, turning the sheets into a damp, slick mess. Tina’s legs wobbled in their somewhat awkward position and gave out, her body falling onto Grace’s and painfully elbowing her in her still-sensitive stomach. She coughed in response, but as Tina’s cock, now growing soft, slid out of her, she found it difficult to feel anything beyond comfort.

The pattern that was her mind cooed her softly. Good girl, Grace. You’re a very good girl, they told her - but she felt it at a level far deeper, deep into the blackness of those twisting lines. It was a true feeling of elation - not motivated by the patterns or the abuse she’d received hours ago; for the first time in her life, Grace truly felt satisfied with herself and the woman laying on top of her. Tina panted and Grace cupped her chin in her gloved hand, bringing her into a kiss. Tina broke off a moment later, speaking through the exhaustion.

“I told y-you… I-I told you and… and you l-listened… Y-You… you really u-understand now, d-don’t you? Don’t y-you?” she asked, a strange mixture of panic and post-orgasmic haze and quiet satisfaction. A bead of saliva connected their lips, glistening an alien shade of red and black in the translucent darkness.

Grace smiled warmly, wrapping her arms around Tina and holding her close, coughing a bit. “I und-derstand a lot, now, T-Tina. I… I understand a lot of things.”

Tina smiled back and wiped some of the dried blood from Grace’s cheek off with a thumb, resting her head down upon her wetsuit-clad shoulder. Outside, the wind blew harder, light snow now filtering itself through the pine needles like moonlight. A long, quiet sigh escaped Grace’s lips, drowned out by the weather and the increasing darkness of the early morning. They had more than a day here before Jäger would contact her again. She would have to make a cover story for him and Rainbow, of course - the state of Tina’s house and her long absence would not go over quietly with a poorly-crafted lie, but strangely, for the two of them, such a thing seemed almost trivial, now. Grace rolled Tina to the side, onto the bed with her, something Chandar had refused that strange night long ago. Tina mumbled something quietly, Grace turning over to allow Tina to spoon her, gently nestling her now-soft cock, bundled in her panties, against the widened hole in Grace’s wetsuit.

Silence. Tina drifted to sleep softly, an arm wrapped around Grace’s body, lazily slumped over her waist. The last light inside the quiet cabin reflected off of Grace’s eyes into the darkness, slowly fluttering before fading to nothing, her exhaustion now catching up with her. She could already feel her mind shifting, becoming an even greater repository for the pattern and its knowledge - just as Tina had. Just as, one day, they all shall be.

Rest well, Grace, the pattern and the one living inside it told her. You have earned it. The soft breathing of both of them gave way to the howling wind and the biting cold, wrapped in a blanket of darkness; an infinite, spinning void of black, criss-crossed by two beautiful red lines, locked in a lover’s embrace.


End file.
